On my first morning here, I discovered the canal, which is about two blocks from the hotel and has a beautiful path, landscaped to the last inch, with art, rocks, flowers and lighting all around it (Im guessing at least five miles). It looks like a huge lake, bigger than Green Lake. I decided that I would run there in the morning, and what an experience! The people here live in the morning, when it is cooler. There were tons of people running (in the equivalent of Keds), doing Tai Chi or, in one case, there was a female boot camp of sorts, but the women were wearing colorful silks and were carrying long swords. There were groups of women just waking up their bodies...hitting their legs, stomachs and arms while sporting two-piece flowered outfits. One group I will call "The Dragonfly Group" because they were exercising among about one hundred of them. The men were doing tai chi, swimming or just looking out at the water. At one point, I thought I heard an ambulance, then another. I looked to where the noise was coming from to see a man simply yelling "AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH" at the top of his lungs, waking them up!
Later that night, we went back and there was an entire night life. Huge groups of all ages doing what looked like line dancing or the Electric Slide, people playing badminton, people napping on the benches, games set up like shooting bee bee guns at balloons. There are a lot of Pakistani men here doing textile business (the suburb we are in is the "polyester" suburb, we discovered) and I have a great picture of them all shooting guns at the little pink and green balloons in their Muslim dress. Here, like Mexico and some places in Europe, I think the night life in the pulic squares is so great and family oriented!
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